A home is a place for experience and learning. Think about the richness of your home while living there.
The reasons and deciding factors for choosing a house vary from person to person. Some people choose based on proximity to the station, while others prioritize the surrounding environment or the view from the window. The reason Shigeki Hattori of Graph chose this house was because it was designed by architect Osamu Ishii.
“I absolutely love Ishii’s architecture, and I wanted to experience the space of Domus Kori, one of his masterpieces, in my own life.”
Ishii was born in Nara Prefecture in 1922 and worked mainly in the Kansai region. He is known for designing many houses that take advantage of the local terrain and coexist with the greenery. He covered the buildings with trees, sometimes burying them underground, and aimed for rich interior spaces that blend in with nature rather than flashy exteriors.
Hattori had known Ishii's name since his student days, but after seeing Ishii's own home, Kaiki Soan, about 10 years ago, he became completely captivated by its charm and thought, "I would like to live in an Ishii building someday."
The kitchen wall is brick. As you can see in the photo above, the wall between the kitchen and the dining room is also finished in brick, and it has the character of having been used for 40 years since it was completed. Hattori is a good cook who loves "good food," and his favorite place in the house is the kitchen. 
A 6-tatami Japanese-style room on the second floor. There are no traditional Japanese decorations such as transoms, and the ceiling is made of bold concrete. "It's modern, isn't it? I've never wanted a Japanese-style room before, but it's really convenient to have one. I also use it as a guest room." 
Hattori's study faces the balcony on the west side of the second floor. With the increase in remote work, he has keenly felt the importance of his study being a "comfortable space." The area is about 4.5 tatami mats, just the right size for a child's room. The slanted ceiling and black beams add accents to the space. 
The third floor terrace. In the summer, when the leaves are lush, it feels like you're floating in the forest. In the winter, the sky is wide and bright, making it a pleasant space. On sunny days, people often eat meals on this terrace. The townhouse is made up of 17 units, and there are many ingenious features that make you feel connected to nature.
"Domus Kori is a modern tenement house, so vacancies are hard to come by, so I was lucky to be able to move in at the right time. When I moved in, I obtained the blueprints and original specifications from when the building was completed, and I put the carpet back on the floors, trying to live in as much of the original condition as possible."
A corner of the living room. The shelf he built under the stairs was simply made by combining concrete blocks and structural plywood purchased at a home improvement store. Hattori's easygoing, unpretentious personality is evident in his home-made furniture and the way he lives in his home. 
The stairwell on the second floor. The light on the left of the photo is coming in from the study on the west side. When the door is left open, the breeze passes straight through. The walls are concrete with white paint. The previous occupant had installed PVC sheets on the floor, but this has been replaced with carpet in accordance with the specifications at the time of completion.
The interior is a split-floor maisonette, with a narrow frontage of just 3.8m, but a depth of nearly four times that. The openness that runs vertically from the front garden on the west side to the rear garden on the east side is beyond imagination. What is most comfortable of all is the presence of a courtyard with a large zelkova tree growing tall.
The living room is located at the east end of the first floor. Although it is on the same floor as the entrance and dining room, it is four flights of stairs down, making it quiet like a semi-basement and giving it a sense of independence. The bookshelf was made by Hattori himself. The building is made of reinforced concrete. 
The living room continues onto the rear garden on the east side of the property. The frontage is 3.8m. "It's a cozy and relaxing size," says Hattori. The apartment is a maisonette from the first to third floors, and each floor is in a split-floor format with a difference in height, with the courtyard as the dividing line. 
Upon entering the entrance, the dining room is on the right hand side of the first floor, and the living room is directly in front, across the courtyard. The split-floor layout gently divides the long vertical space into east and west sections, creating a comfortable rhythm for the space. Zelkova trees are planted in the courtyard.
"The east and west sides allow for good lighting and ventilation, and the split-floor layout with the courtyard as the dividing line allows for different living spaces. Living here has left me deeply impressed by how well-designed it is. What I feel most is the beauty of the light. On winter mornings, when sunlight pours in from the courtyard into the slightly dark dining room, it's the best thing ever."
The inside of the closed kitchen. Hattori added a shelf to the wall opposite the sink and stove using DIY. The kitchen is the same size as the dining room, measuring nearly 6 tatami mats, and has direct access from the front yard, so there are no problems with taking out the trash or ventilating the room. 
One of the distinctive features of Domus Kori is its bold concrete ceiling, which is made up of a series of semicircles about 30cm in diameter. The shadows create a soft, sometimes dramatic impression in the space. There are also a row of small skylights in the washroom on the second floor. 
The third-floor bedroom is the largest room in the house. His wife, Chika, has a simple desk made of plywood on yellow horse legs in her work corner. The chair is a Gerd Lange Flexchair, released by Thonet in 1973.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, people have been spending more time at home, and Hattori says, "I've thought again about how much a place called home can support."
"Until now, my workplace was connected to the outside world, but now I feel like my study and living space at home are directly connected to the world. That's why it's so important to have a rich living space and to discover something new about that place every day. I feel like I'm learning that as I live in Ishii's architecture."
